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PRESENTED m" 



Gold Ornaments 

From United States of Colombia. 



BY GEORGE F. KUNZ. 



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Reprint from American Antiquarian, September, 1887. 



GOLD ORNAMENTS FROM UNITED STATES OF 

COLOMBIA. 

This series of gold ornaments, kindly loaned me for descrip- 
tion by Mr. S. L. M. Barlow and Mr. J. M. Miinoz, were found 
on tl.e banks of the Mingindo river, a tributary of the Artato, in 
the state of Cavca, United States of Colombia, South America. 
With them were also found a number of plain undecorated nose 
rings, that weighed 6. 10, 34, and 38 dwts respectively. With 
one exception these nose rings were all about 920 fine. The 
only history coming with them was that they were brought in 
by a negro woman who had found them in a grave and who sold 
them for their simple gold value to the person who brought 




Fig. 2. 



them to the United States. The largest is a decorated plaque 
ornament measuring 7 9-16 inches (20 cm.) across and weighing 5 
oz., 1 3 dwts (193 grammes). See Fig. 1 It was evidently used as a 



268 



THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN, 



breast ornament or as the centre of a shield, being attached with nails 
or suspended by a string as the case required, by means of two 
small holes near the upper part. The general appearance of the 
ornament is that of an attempt at a moonlike face, and the style 
of workmanship does not vary much from that of the gold object 




Fig. 3- 

No 2 from the Florida mound described in a former paper. There 
are three raised ridges or lines around the shield, that bend and 
geniculate, as it were, at the upper end, running down the center 
of the shield very nearly to the two raised rings with central dots, 
that seem to have been intended for eyes. Another raised ridge 



(SOLD ORNAMENTS. 



369 




Kig, ,. 



270 THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN. 

runs around the outside of all these, the raised disk in the center 
seeming to be the point from which they take their direction. 
This interesting piece belongs to Mr. S. L..M. Barlow. 

A banker of South America informed Mr. Barlow that he had 
purchased full one hundred of these shield-like ornaments simply 
for their bullion value, and then melted them and sold them as 
such, and that of all these no drawing or record had been kept. 
The abundance of these and other gold ornaments which have ior 
nearly three hundred years been taken from this part of South 
America, cannot but lead us to conclude that the time when they 
were worn was truly a golden age. 

The nose ring is a beautiful piece of aboriginal work, weighing 
26.5 grammes 17 dwts. It is 3^ inches (83 mm.) long, 2 1-10 
inches (52 mm.) wide. See Fig. 2. The ring can be readily bent 
on one side, and then adjusted to the nose, and in a semicircle 
below this are arranged four rows of a woven, gallery-shaped 
net work of gold wire, between which and the outside of e;ich of 
the galleries are three straight wires of gold to which the gal- 
leries are attached. On the top of this semicircle, on each side 
of the ring to fit in the nose, is arrangeda row of three figures 
made of a single piece of gold wire skilfully twisted into shape. 
The center figure of the trio is a human-like object with each arm 
extended out and joined to the bill of a duck-like object, there be- 
ing one group of these figures on each side of the central ring. 

A flat plate of gold found among these objects, 7 cm. wide 
(2^ inches) and 12.5 cm. long (5 inches) is only a remnant of 
what was originally a belt long enough to encircle the waist. It 
is quite thin, bends readily, and is wholly devoid of ornamenta- 
tion. See Fig. 3. A number of practical silversmiths who have 
examined it believe that it was rolled, in fact that it could not have 
been made in any other way, but a gold worker suggested that it 
might have been beaten out between two pieces of leather. How 
this could have produced so even and uniform a strip, and by 
what means they rolled it, if indeed they did, are not known. 

A curious chain is also in Mr. Barlow's possession. It weighs 
8 ounces 18 dwts (89 grammes), is over two feet long, and is 
composed of crescent-like pieces with round eyelets at both ends 
working in small round links by which they are connected to- 
gether without the use of solder, forming a very strong chain. 

An interesting gold ornament from the United States of Co- 
lombia, evidently used for a brooch with a raised figure of the 
virgin and child, said to be eighteenth century work, was identi- 
cal in workmanship with Fig. 2. 

Geo. F. Kunz. 

New York City. 



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